“As I am obliged to be.  I should take care not to lay myself open to the temptation.  Neither need you have done it.”

“I don’t see how I was to help myself.  Often and often I wished to have visitors in the house, but the old woman met me with reproaches that I was forgetting the recent death of my brother.  She won’t have any one now if she knows it, and I had to send for you quietly.  Did you see how she stared last night when you came in?”

Mr. Carr drew down his lips.  “You might have gone away yourself, Elster.”

“Of course I might,” was the testy reply.  “But I was a fool, and didn’t.  Carr, I swear to you I fell into the trap unconsciously; I did not foresee danger.  Maude is a charming girl, there’s no denying it; but as to love, I never glanced at it.”

“Was it not suspected in town last year that Lady Maude had a liking for your brother?”

“It was suspected there and here; I thought it myself.  We were mistaken.  One day lately Maude offended me, and I hinted at something of the sort:  she turned red and white with indignation, saying she wished he could rise from his grave to refute it.  I only wish he could!” added the unhappy man.

“Have you told me all?”

“All!  I wish I had.  In December I was passing the Rectory, and saw it dismantled.  Hillary, whom I met, said the family had gone to Ventnor.  I went in, but could not learn any particulars, or get the address.  I chanced a letter, written I confess in anger, directing it Ventnor only, and it found them.  Anne’s answer was cool:  mischief-making tongues had been talking about me and Maude; I learned so much from Hillary; and Anne no doubt resented it.  I resented that—­can you follow me, Carr?—­and I said to myself I wouldn’t write again for some time to come.  Before that time came the climax had occurred.”

“And while you were waiting for your temper to come round in regard to Miss Ashton, you continued to make love to the Lady Maude?” remarked Mr. Carr.  “On the face of things, I should say your love had been transferred to her.”

“Indeed it hadn’t.  Next to Anne, she’s the most charming girl I know; that’s all.  Between the two it will be awful work for me.”

“So I should think,” returned Mr. Carr.  “The ass between two bundles of hay was nothing to it.”

“He was not an ass at all, compared with what I am,” assented Val, gloomily.

“Well, if a man behaves like an ass—­”

“Don’t moralize,” interrupted Hartledon; “but rather advise me how to get out of my dilemma.  The morning’s drawing on, and I have promised to ride with Maude.”

“You had better ride alone.  All the advice I can give you is to draw back by degrees, and so let the flirtation subside.  If there is no actual entanglement—­”

“Stop a bit, Carr; I had not come to it,” interrupted Lord Hartledon, who in point of fact had been holding back what he called the climax, in his usual vacillating manner.  “One ill-starred day, when it was pouring cats and dogs, and I could not get out, I challenged Maude to a game at billiards.  Maude lost.  I said she should pay me, and put my arm round her waist and snatched a kiss.  Just at that moment in came the dowager, who I believe must have been listening—­”